For an hour he strolled about, his right hand never far from the butt of the automatic that lay along his groin, his eyes never too far from the unwilling Nau-hau beside him.

For Nau-hau, in sullen volcanic rage, was ripe to erupt at the slightest opportunity.

And, so strolling, Van Horn was given to see what few white men have seen, for Langa-Langa and her sister islets, beautiful beads strung along the lee coast of Malaita, were as unique as they were unexplored.
Originally these islets had been mere sand-banks and coral reefs awash in the sea or shallowly covered by the sea.

Only a hunted, wretched creature, enduring incredible hardship, could have eked out a miserable existence upon them.

But such hunted, wretched creatures, survivors of village massacres, escapes from the wrath of chiefs and from the long-pig fate of the cooking-pot, did come, and did endure.